


A Matter of Time

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chats, Dubious Understanding of Science on the Part of the Author, F/M, Fluff, Missing Scene, Science, Season 3, SpaceTime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 04:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11866698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: Missing scene some hours after "Maybe some things are inevitable". Because the momentousness of that for FS was sorely undersold.





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This could go in my drabbles collection but oh well

_Maybe some things_ are _inevitable._

Fitz grinned to himself in the empty hallway, flexing the fingers of his right hand as he made his way to his room the long way around. He didn’t feel ready for bed; an energy he hadn’t felt in some time suffused him. He felt a right git being cheerful after the way the mission had gone down, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

Maybe he was reading into it – which he was admittedly prone to doing, though he’d gotten better at tamping down his expectations since Maveth – but Jemma’s words as they stood in the falling ash seemed _significant_. Not in a scientific sense, but in a … _them_ sense. As if, after all her purported disbelief of the fixed nature of time, there was something about _them_ powerful enough to change her mind.

It was ridiculously sappy, thinking about it like that. Probably she just meant something like ‘the arc of history bends towards justice’ or something like that.

But still.

“And what are you all Mr. Sunshine about?”

Fitz had to backtrack a few paces to the doorway of the kitchen, where Jemma was seated at the island over what appeared to be a midnight bowl of cereal. Her eyes tracked him, unblinking, as he crossed the room to her, in his boldness of the moment not stopping until he was just beside her.

“Oh, just thinking,” he murmured, leaning sideways against the tabletop.

Jemma made a motion with her spoon for him to proceed.

“Just thinking about how you managed to admit you were wrong while still clinging to your errant beliefs. Impressive double-think, that was.”

Jemma’s answering scoff came with a soft smile that told him she knew he was teasing. “I said _maybe._ And I said _some things_. I won’t concede to absolute inevitability.”

“So you’d rather ignore laws of physics and the greatest minds of our time than admit you’re wrong.”

“It’s not my _pride_ at issue, _Fitz_ ,” she sighed, and he was lucky he was already grinning because the exasperated affection in her emphasis on his name would’ve sent him into blissful emotional spirals. “I’ve read the studies, I’ve heard your analysis of them, but the notion that nothing we do can change anything, that we’re locked in to one path… I can’t stomach that.”

“But what you’re suggesting -- endless permutations of different outcomes and tricking the universe into a future you like -- doesn’t _hold up_ , Simmons. It doesn’t make sense.”

“You know, for a Whovian, you’re decidedly unimaginative about these matters.”

“Well, for a scientist, you’re decidedly illogical. You can’t defy science.”

“Isn’t that what we do, though?” Jemma asked, and Fitz’s heart shuddered in anticipation before she continued, “At SHIELD, I mean. Don’t our jobs _require_ that we accept that so much of what we know is incomplete? That we do the impossible? A year and a half ago Daisy’s very existence would’ve seemed to defy science. We continually face forces ostensibly outside our control, like Hydra or terrigenesis or … or the cosmos,” she added determinedly, though her voice shook and her cheeks colored as she held his gaze, “and we defy them, because we don’t like the outcome if we just sit there and do nothing. You can’t tell me we’re having _no_ effect.”

“I’m not claiming pre-destination or lack of free will, just that our free will is… fixed. If we know the future, that’s the future. That’s it.”

“That’s very depressing, Fitz.”

“No, no, it doesn’t have to be,” he protested quickly, catching her hand as she moved to pick up her spoon again. “Think of it like this. If time is fixed, what’s happened has happened, so we can stop wishing things had gone on our way and instead focus on the future, because whether we can change it or not, it’s steadily approaching and we have to be ready to live it.”

“The future,” Jemma repeated softly.

“Yeah.” He glanced down to where he held her hand, which had curled slightly around his. “The terrifying, beautiful, dependable future.”

“As brilliant and sudden as a sunrise.”

From the hallway came the beep of a lock disengaging, followed a second later by the rattle of an equipment cart being wheeled into a storage room. They both started, seeming to realize simultaneously that they were in a public place and there were still people moving about the base to clean up after the mission, and Jemma nearly spilled milk down her jumper. She laughed, slipping free from Fitz’s grip.

“If Daisy finds out we’re still on about this she’ll ask Coulson to put us in time-out,” she said, smiling ruefully up at Fitz.

“Now _that_ would be inevitable,” Fitz chuckled.

He waited for her to finish her cereal (now so soggy it was inedible, in his opinion, though she shushed him), then walked her back to her room. He wished that the lights weren’t as bright, that the security cameras weren’t aimed right at them, that two technicians weren’t talking halfway down the hallway – not that he would’ve necessarily had the courage to do or say anything even if they’d been alone. But when he hugged Jemma goodnight, he didn’t feel they’d missed a chance at something vital.

That chance was still coming.

With them, it was only a matter of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to dilkirani for her rewatch and our conversations thereabout for inspiring me to write this tidbit!


End file.
